+ Your imagination can't hurt you! +

[vitaelamorte]

Who: YOU!
Where: The Mindscape
When: starting November 11th
Rating: may be up to R for character deaths
Summary: Navigate challenges to learn valuable lessons about nonviolence, cooperation, and self-sacrifice! Release your inner animal! Read more about the event here, and on the bulletin board.
The Story:




"If you know yourself, you have nothing to fear."
"Working together is the only way."
"Deaths are a necessary part of life, but not all deaths are necessary."
"The needs of the many outweigh the life of just one."

Comments

[mypartnerintime]

[She recoils slightly at his words.

She'd known Alex... for a while. Months. And there was that one time he went home and came back, and after that... she hardly knew him at all anymore. None of her usual dork jokes would make him laugh.

Is that what Tim means? That maybe Max knew him before he changed, and she saw what that change did, and couldn't do a damn thing. Couldn't win him back.

He went over, or something. He crossed a line. And he wouldn't go back.

She takes a ragged breath, trying to calm down, which is difficult in the face of all of Tim's panic.]

Why can't I know? I'm trying to understand, but he never really explained it to me...

[He said something about a virus, something memetic. Something worth killing her over, apparently.]

cw suicide ideation

[postictal]

Figures.

[He's on the verge of something. Panic, or one of those messy moments where he sobs into his hands like a damn child, or something worse. He's teetering, barely able to steady himself, and she just keeps asking questions.

He manages to shake his head, shakily.]

Please, [he rasps, quietly.] Please don't - don't think about It. Don't talk about It. It just...It's not safe.

It's not safe.

[That won't change anything, will it? If she doesn't know what It is, It could still come for her. It could still send everything straight to hell.

Even an entire world away from It, he's still doing everything It wants.

He should've driven himself off a cliff. He should've put that bullet in his skull. Gulped down too much medication. Something, anything that would keep him from this - this hell. From keeping himself from condemning everyone else to the same hell because he's too goddamn selfish to just do what he knows he deserves and fucking end it.]

:(

[mypartnerintime]

[She breathes a heavy and disappointed sigh. She gives him one last piercing look before getting back onto her feet, frustration and annoyance etched into her features.]

Nobody ever talks about it.

[She stares at the blank TV again, looking at nothing. She could keep asking- he's practically on his hands and knees with the weight of it already, and it probably wouldn't take much to send him over into a babbling, uncontrollable rant.

Then rewind- like nothing happened. He wouldn't even know.

But... she's not like that. Right?

...Right.

And she wants him to remember this happened. She wants him to know that she knows now, and that she's going to be watching him- especially if Chloe continues to insist on liking the guy.

She doesn't say anything. With angry strides she moves to the keypad and punches in a random set of four numbers, which obviously doesn't work.]

[postictal]

[And she's...pissed, right? That he's not saying a damn thing about it. That's - fine. It's okay. He can accept that. He deserves that. It's better than her continuing to pry, continuing to ask questions. Only that won't save her. Even ignorance won't save her.

It wasn't enough to save Jay. It's never enough to save anyone.

He scrubs a hand over his face, frantically trying to wipe away any vestiges of his messy, selfish breakdown with little success. She's taking steps to get out of here, right? He should be helping. He should be doing...something.

But first he stands up, shakily, and opens the tape deck. Extricates the little black square of the tape inside. He should rip it up, tear it to pieces. Burn it with his lighter.

For now, he simply slips it in his pocket.

Later. He'll do it later.

He tries to keep his voice steady, as though they haven't just - just learned something new and absolutely terrifying about one another.]

It could be a word. [He's pretty sure he knows exactly what word it is, actually. His tone trembles, but he works to keep it firm.] A coded word.

[mypartnerintime]

[She's already feeling guilty about the whole thing. And she knows Alex has done worse things than punch someone while they're down, but to see it so suddenly... and to have so much shit shoved so rudely in her face all at once...

She might actually need to apologize to Tim at some point. But for now being angry feels like the right thing to do. Her friend went missing, after all, and now there's someone who knows all about him. That's too much of a coincidence.

She snaps out of her deep thoughts as he speaks. Sure. A word. She punches in 2539. Alex.

Doesn't work.

She sighs.]

I've got nothing.

[postictal]

[He flicks his eyes shut for a moment, pulling together all the different words that have been significant over his life. Over the last few years in particular. Narrows them down to four-letter words, which nixes ark and Jay and Amy and Jessica.]

Here.

[He heads over. He tries a few combinations, one after another - SEES. LIES. HIDE.

When it's none of those, he sighs, 'cause he knows exactly what it is.

He punches in 5427.

LIAR.

The vault beeps and swings open with the low grind of metal over metal.]

[mypartnerintime]

[She watches the door open with a little bit of surprise.]

What was it? ...Or is that off-limits too?

[She tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice.]

[postictal]

5427. Liar.

[The words drop from his mouth dully. He's just...surpassed the threshold of caring anymore what she has to say about him, or why she thinks he's a piece of shit, or anything along those lines. She can hate him all she wants, for what he did, for what he represents - it really doesn't matter.

And hey, that'll give them one thing to have in common.]

[mypartnerintime]

[Liar. He is a liar were the words scrawled on one wall in the video.

She only nods without raising any further accusations, conscious that she's probably torn into Tim enough as it is. It's easy to think she knows him, can judge him by the little she's seen... but she has to fight against that instinct, and she knows it.

All the same, this is probably Wonderland's way of telling her to not believe everything says. And she certainly won't be.

The sigh she lets out is tired but soft, as she walks past him to enter the darkness beyond the door.

Hell of a day.]

[postictal]

[He lets her go first. He's not sure what's on the other side; more puzzles with people he doesn't know, if the pattern of the day is going to hold up.

The square of the tape is heavy in his pocket. Like the entry he kept there, hidden, for months.

Yeah.

He still is a liar, isn't he.

Tim swallows past the lump in his throat, and follows her.]